My photographer, Invicta’s Art Photography, took my model of choice for this project, Colin Lenn, into the Las Vegas desert to get this shot for the Carnal cover and I love it.

The first book in the EXILED series is tied to Black Swan with Rosie, aka Elora Rose Storm.

The angel, Kellareal, stopped the genocide of generations of hybrids, who had been bred for research and spent their entire lives imprisoned. Against orders, he spirited them away to a place where they would have freedom and purpose.

In a vindictive fit, Rosie Storm asked her mother’s friend, Kellareal, for a place to hide from her boyfriend and teach him a lesson. Kellareal knew just the place for Rosie to grow up and learn temper control among other things. The land of Exiled.

How do you mend a broken heart? – Kellareal

Elora Rose Storm, otherwise known as Rosie, left her dimension in a fit of immaturity over not getting her way. Some might say the behavior was easier to forgive in light of the fact that she was, chronologically, only fourteen-months-old. Her witch / demon genes had accelerated her physical and intellectual growth, but her emotional equilibrium lagged behind.

The Exiled were a race of human hybrids, who, for generations, had lived their entire lives as slave test subjects. When they became perceived as too dangerous to keep, their creators planned a genocide. Against Council orders, Kellareal intervened and moved them to a dimension where they would have the opportunity to establish balance between the human population and a race of stronger, faster, fiercer hybrids who preyed on them.

Rosie thought she was getting a few weeks of asylum. The last thing she was expecting was to meet someone like Carnal.

Two brothers, unknown to each other, on a crash trajectory with destiny and two broken hearts.

TWO PRINCES: The Biker and The Billionaire, Sons of Sanctuary MC, Book 1

Brigid was a graduate student at the University of Texas. It wasn’t hard getting her thesis approved, but finding a Hill Country motorcycle club willing to give her access to their lifestyle was starting to look impossible. Then she got a lead. A friend of a friend had a cousin with family ties to The Sons of Sanctuary. Perfect. Or so she thought.

What she wanted was information to prove a scholarly proposition. The last thing she had in mind was falling for one of the members of the club. Especially since she was a feminist academic out to prove that motorcycle clubs are organized according to the same structure as primitive tribal society.

Brash was standing in line at the H.E.B. Market when his world tipped on its axis. While waiting his turn to check out, his gaze had wandered to the magazine display and settled on the new issue of “NOW”. The image on the cover, although GQ’d up in an insanely urbane way, was… him.

After reading the article, he threw some stuff in a duffle and left his only home, a room at The Sons of Sanctuary clubhouse, with a vague explanation about needing a couple of days away. He left his truck at the Austin airport and caught a plane for New York, on a mission to find a mysterious guy walking around with his face.

BONUS PREQUEL: Intro to the Sons of Sanctuary MC, A Season in Gemini, is included with TWO PRINCES.

TWO PRINCES EXCERPT:

“Sir?” Brash Fornight gradually became aware that someone behind him in the grocery checkout line was trying to get his attention. “Sir?” He refocused and glanced behind him. The woman leaning on a cart overflowing with chip bags and cookie boxes nodded toward the cashier indicating that it was his turn to move forward. Brash looked her in the eye and had to give her props. Most people wouldn’t have the balls to try to herd a guy wearing Sons of Sanctuary MC leather.

The club employed a woman who cooked and did grocery shopping several times a week as part of her job description, but Brash didn’t like to explain his relentless craving for peanuts and he liked being teased about it even less. He didn’t know whether it was the Vitamin B or the fat or just because he liked the taste, but he couldn’t imagine going a day without them.

That’s how he came to be standing statue still In the grocery checkout line, being prompted by some woman with more nerve than sense. While he was waiting, his eyes drifted over the magazine display and settled on the cover of “NOW”, on the Most Eligible Bachelor edition no less. The debonair figure staring back was wearing Brash’s own face and body. He looked different with short hair and a four thousand dollar suit with the shirt fashionably open at the neckline, but the similarity was inescapable.

On impulse he grabbed the magazine and tossed it onto the conveyor belt with his week’s stash of peanuts.

He stuffed the bags into the saddlebags of his bike and roared toward home, nervously tapping his fingers on handlebars at red lights, riding on shoulders to keep from slowing down. He was anxious to get to the privacy of his own room and read about Branach St. Germaine.

Two beers, one jar of peanuts, and one “NOW” article later, Brash was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at the wall, seeing nothing but his own heavy thoughts. He pulled out his phone, looked up a website, and waited on hold for ten minutes to hear the time of the next flight from Austin to New York.

There was a flight to Newark in a little over three hours. He looked at his watch and calculated the time it would take to drive from Dripping Springs at that time of day. As he booked the flight, he stood up, walked to the small closet, grabbed a duffel bag, and began shoving stuff into it. Ten minutes later, he closed his door and locked it, threw the duffel over his shoulder, and headed straight for the office downstairs. He dropped the duffel on the hallway floor beside the closed door and knocked.

“Yeah?” Brash looked inside, glad that his dad was by himself, and stepped in. “What’s up?”

“I’m takin’ personal time, Pop. Gonna be gone for a couple of days.”

“What the hell is ‘personal time’?”

The gruffness made Brash smile. “It means I’m not gonna be here if you call and I’m not tellin’ you why.”

The Sons of Sanctuary President looked up at Brash, over the top of his readers, and narrowed his eyes. “You got a secret?”

“Everybody’s got secrets.”

Brandon Fornight studied his son for a minute. “True enough. Is it the kind of secret that could affect this club?”

Brash shook his head. “Don’t see how.”

“Well, then. See you… When did you say you’d be back?”

“I didn’t.”

“Bein’ purposefully vague, are you?”

Brash grinned. “That’s why they call it personal time. But I expect to be back Friday.”

“You gonna have your phone with you?” When Brash nodded, Bran looked back down at his ledger in a deliberately dismissive gesture. “Well, get outta here then.”

Brash parked his bike in the airplane hangar. The structure had already been on the property when the club had bought it and turned it into a compound twenty years earlier. They used part of it for vehicle maintenance and repair and part for parking.

Some of the guys who were working looked over and shot curious glances his way when Brash threw his duffel into his pickup and started it up, but it wasn’t their way to ask questions. The Sons figured that if somebody wanted you to know something, they’d tell you.

Brash took a cab to a midtown hotel, wondering all the way why human beings would choose to live in such a place. As he slid his credit card across the hotel counter to the agent on duty, he glanced at the name, Brandon Fornight. It seemed unlikely that it was a coincidence that that the mysterious look-alike’s first name began with the same four letters. He ordered room service and pulled out his laptop.

Getting intel on the guy didn’t take advanced ops. Within an hour Brash knew where Brannach St. Germaine worked, what kind of car he drove, what kind of women he dated, who his tailor was, and where he liked to dine. There was no shortage of photos online, but the one that grabbed his attention wasn’t one of the many with starlets or debutantes on his arm. It was the one taken with his arm around his mother as they were arriving together for some red carpet fundraiser. Brash had an almost irresistible compulsion to reach up and touch her face on the screen in front of him.

The knock on the door signaled that room service had arrived. It cost a fortune, but looked and tasted like shit. So he closed the computer and went out for a walk to clear his head and find something edible.

This novella will first release as part of the Romancing the Paranormal anthology.

In the middle of a war with dragon shifters, a human widow of a werewolf may get another chance at love, but feelings of guilt threaten a blossoming attraction to the one wolf everyone thought was untamable.

FIRST CHAPTER:

“They’re here!”

Lessie smiled at the excitement in Elise’s voice. She turned her face toward where Elise was pointing while jumping up and down.

She laughed at her friend, “Have a little dignity.”

“Pffft,” said Elise. “Who needs dignity? I need a man. Or maybe a werewolf man,” she pretended to swoon.

The day was bright, filled with the musical sounds of wind chimes ringing in the breeze, like fanfare announcing the arrival of the young wolves looking for brides. Lessie tried but failed to calm the surge of nerves. Elise was the catalyst that pushed her control over the edge. Her emotions had broken free and were not taking either advice or direction, as was clear by the goose bumps that had risen all over her body. Even the air felt like it was filled with magic.

Their society had been burdened with a generation of young women of marriageable age, and no male counterparts to marry. Likewise, so they’d been told, there was a world with a population of young eligible werewolf males without females to wed and, supposedly, they were even more eager to meet. The Conscriptor had stressed the word “eager” in a way that made some of the girls giggle and exchange bright-eyed looks of delight. Others were more outwardly reserved, even if they were just as titillated by the suggestive inference.

As recently as a fortnight before, the young ladies had never heard of werewolves. The description of their species was a little horrifying at first, but desperation overrode choosiness and they decided they were willing to take a look. By the time the day of arrival came, all reservations had melted into a breathless anticipation.

Lessie had worn a yellow dress that complimented her auburn hair and light brown eyes. Set against the bright sunshine of the morning, the color almost made her appear to glow, as if she was walking surrounded by a halo.

The wolves were arriving on the docks by an ocean that was sparkling with reflected sunlight. The means of their arrival was nothing less than dazzling to humans who were accustomed to ordinary, mundane lives.

From the hillside Lessie and her friends could see the prospective husbands come into view one at a time, as if they were walking out of nothingness and taking form as they emerged. It seemed to the girls that it was a god-like thing to do, appearing out of nowhere. That, of course, added to their mystique and made the occasion even more thrilling. The prospects were arriving quickly enough to become a group and be scoping out their surroundings by the time the bachelorettes reached the dock en masse.

The werewolves had been told they would have their work cut out for them if they wanted to convince a human female to commit to mate and leave her home forever. With that in mind, they had studied what behaviors women find attractive in men, along with actual classes in the arts of love taught by a sex demon who was a friend of their alpha. They had come to the land of brides prepared for pursuit of a mate to be the challenge of their lives. So the last thing they expected was to be, more or less, besieged by a crowd of beauties in bright colored dresses and brigher smiles that conveyed receptiveness to social advances.

Lessie’s friends had rushed into the crowd of wolves with an enthusiasm that she found embarrassing. She’d hung back at the edge of the throng, feeling and, perhaps, looking uncertain.

While she was trying to decide whether she would continue to observe or join the mixer, the air dazzled a few feet away and she was face to face with a male who simply and literally took her breath away. He was a little taller than she, with golden skin and long mahogany-colored hair worn loose down his back. But the single feature that caught her attention so that she couldn’t have looked away, not even if she was on fire, was his eyes. His irises were a gray so pale they made him seem even more alien than she’d been expecting. But the otherworldly look of his eyes was softened and warmed when the edges of his mouth turned up into a wolf smile.

As it happened, he seemed to be just as captivated by her and never took his eyes away. Relations with the opposite sex is both easy and natural for werewolves as they are sexual creatures with an innate charismatic appeal, particularly where humans are concerned. One look at the face of the prey who had wandered into his path told the wolf that his pursuit would be both fruitful.

“What’s your name?” asked the wolf.

“Lestriv,” said the girl.

“Lestriv.” He repeated her name slowly as if he was tasting it and rolling it around on his tongue. “That’s hard to say.” His conclusion was offered with a teasing smile that made his eyes light from within.

She resisted the impulse to reach out and trace the strong pronounced line of his jaw with her fingertips, but just barely. Instead she returned his smile, feeling shy about her inexperience with the opposite sex and, at the same time, emboldened by his obvious interest.

“I guess that’s why most people call me Lessie.”

He tried out “Lessie” the same way and, looking satisfied, said, “Much better.”

The werewolf took a step toward her. She took a step back reflexively, not because she wanted to retreat from him. She didn’t. It was simply an involuntary response.

She couldn’t have known it, but it was the best thing she could have done if she wanted to snag a wolf because that small response awakened his predatory instincts and made her an object of even greater fascination.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the wolf.

“I’m… not,” Lessie stumbled.

“I’ll not harm you. In fact,” his mouth curled in a way that made her knees weak, “I’ll show you more pleasure than you’ve ever imagined. If you’ll let me.”

At that he reached out at arm’s length and ran a warm finger down her cheek. She couldn’t suppress a shiver. He couldn’t stop his smile from widening when he saw it.

Inside she may have been contemplating the many ways she would like to explore his claim of commanding pleasure, but what her mouth said was, “What’s your name?”

He raised his chin and offered a charming little lopsided grin. “Jimmy Clear-Eyes.”

Lessie cocked her head to the side. “That suits you fine, werewolf.”

Again he took a step toward the woman and reached for her hand, but that time she did not back away.

“You suit me fine, human.”

The sound of wind chimes blown by sweet sunny breezes stopped abruptly as Lessie started to feel the corporeal weight of her body waking. She heard a woman’s voice repeat, “They’re here,” but it wasn’t Elise announcing the arrival of young brash handsome werewolves looking for love. It was the alpha’s mate, Luna, come to help get her ready for the worst day of her life, Jimmy’s funeral.

Inside her mind chanted, “No,” over and over again, like she could use the word as a shield against reentering the nightmare of her reality But she couldn’t hold wakefulness at bay forever. New tears sprang into eyes badly swollen from crying for two days.

As she turned in the bed, her hand automatically went to her belly, which was just beginning to tell the world that their second child was seeded and growing. She hoped that the baby, he or she, couldn’t feel the pain in her heart.

Sasha has
grown up with one surety: she’s not normal. Since she was little, she’s had
unexplained talents & seen strange shapes in the shadows no one else can
see. One night, everything changes. Suddenly she is immersed in a world full of
danger & magic. She must finally reveal her secrets in order to survive.

LUCA’S MAGIC EMBRACE – Kym Grosso

In the Big
Easy, vampire, Luca Macquarie, & witch, Samantha Irving, embark on a
spellbinding journey, searching for a mystical relic. With cryptic clues &
clandestine allies, will they destroy the dangerous amulet before others
acquire it? Will Luca give in to his erotic desire for the witch who magically
captures his heart?

DAMON – Teresa Gabelman

Damon
DeMasters, vampire warrior, has taken an oath to protect his own kind as well
as humans. Social worker, Nicole Callahan fights for the right of every child
placed in her care. Damon has been ordered to train Nicole & her colleagues
against the dangers they now face. Even as sparks fly, Nicole & Damon
depend on each other to protect the children of both races.

DESTINED – Brenda K. Davies

Terrified of
becoming mated like her parents, Isabelle has locked herself away to avoid
their fate. Despite her determination to remain alone, her world is rocked when
Stefan arrives at their door. Just as she begins to let her guard down,
Stefan’s dark & deadly past catches up to him & threatens to destroy
them both.

HONEYMOON BITE – Sharon Hamilton

Anne caught
her husband cheating before their wedding cake was cut, so she takes her
honeymoon in Tuscany alone. Bitten by a vampire on her wedding night, she is
left for dead, until Marcus Monteleone, her 300 year old fated mate, rescues
her. Will they be able to navigate Marcus’ rocky & dangerous past to have
an immortal future together?

A SUMMONER’S TALE – Victoria Danann

The
devastatingly seductive ex-vampire, Istvan Baka, is forced to relive his tragic
life as human & confront his past as vampire while his friends search for
him. That search ultimately proves that love waits patiently through lifetimes
for a second chance.

Every thousand
years the Vampire Queen selects a new body, always the fairest in the land,
& this time she’s chosen Snow White.

THE NIGHTLIFE SAN ANTONIO – Travis Luedke

Vampires,
Mafia & Sexy Mayhem:

EMT on call,
Adrian Faulkner resuscitates a beautiful woman after a mafia shootout. He can’t
explain why he picks her up in the hospital parking lot three days later, then
ducks the police. She wanted to escape. He wanted to get laid. They both got more than they bargained for.

MIDNIGHT CAPTIVE – Arial Burnz

After seven
years, James Knightly returns as a master swordsman, ready to captain a ship
& wed his childhood sweetheart, Cailin MacDougal. Waiting for him is a
dagger-toting hellion for a bride, an immortal father-in-law, & an enemy
bent on threatening the family James holds most dear.

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away named CW, there was a 16th century historical drama series with little resemblance to our reality. The show is supposed to center around the life and times of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Also called “Mary, Teen of Scots” by some, the show demonstrates everything that’s wrong with the ever-growing tendency to treat history as a rough draft. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if the show began with disclaimers that names, dates, and places are fictional and any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental.

The cynical among us would say that CW is a corporation tasked with a money making mission. Its purpose is to make money even if that means exploiting a target market populated by people whose brains are six years away from being fully developed. And who really cares if only one out of a hundred high school students could find France on a globe? Regardless of intent, we are creatures who adapt and learn.

Here are a few things I learned from “Reign”. In 1557 they…

 They danced the minuet to music played with electrical instruments that sounds very much like contemporary tweeny pop.

 When girls cried, mascara ran down their faces.

 They had no need of woodsmen because they used clean and convenient gas fireplaces.

 Queens did their own packing for traveling.

 They could ride in an open-windowed carriage in the middle of a snowy French winter, but noses don’t turn red, eyes didn’t water and magical thin capes, loosely tied over bare skin, were sufficient for warmth.

Perhaps I pay too much attention to such details. Like dress for instance. In one of my former careers, I was an evening wear designer. As a child I was always especially interested in the awards for movie costume design and marveled at the amount of research and care that went into accurately reproducing costumes so that they were authentic, right down to using only fabrics that were available at the time. No Zippers. No buttons. Some even went so far as to make sure everything was hand sewn as they would have been at the time.

That tradition of faithfully recreating period dress may not be sacred, but CW has gone completely off the reservation. Take the ladies in waiting. Mary did have four, as was the custom for royalty.

But they dressed like this…

Not this…

Prom anyone?

If you think I’m done ragging on the costumer, you are so wrong.

Leather pants? Come on.

The push-up thing she’s wearing? Not a corset. Not a bustier. No. It’s a basque. It made its first appearance in fashion three hundred years after this period – minus the push-up feature.

The leather pants? Don’t get me started. Let me simply show what Henry’s clothes would have looked like.

Yes. This one is what the real King Henry would have been wearing. It may not be biker chic in 2014, but it’s accurate.

Hate to “Bash” the show, but…

Sorry. Couldn’t resist. There was no Sebastian de Poitiers, bastard son of the king. He was invented for this photo and because the writers must have thought a love triangle would be cool.

If there had been a half-brother named Sebastien, I assure you he would not have been given a motorcycle club nickname like “Bash”. Had a fanciful name been bestowed, it would have sounded more like Sebastian Curt Hose or Sebastian the Sorrowful.

The fictional Bash does have striking blue eyes. I’ll give him that.

Regarding other casting choices, Mary – the real Mary – had bright auburn hair and hazel eyes. She was 5’11” which would probably compare today to a woman 6’5”. By contrast, Francis was abnormally short and so sickly that he was practically an invalid. He was married at fourteen and died at sixteen.

The actual Francis and Mary.

Francis and Mary on the show, but why quibble?

Next to the outrageous disregard for historical accuracy in costuming, the thing that bothers me the most about this show is the deserted castle hallways and the deserted castle grounds. Love the shots of a lone couple, Mary and Francis, strolling the grounds of a castle built to house hundreds. Not one other person is present. Not the king’s guard or the queen’s guard (ancestors to the Secret Service which perhaps was somewhat secret seventy years ago when all men wore dark suits and white shirts). There’s not even a dog, cow, chicken or goat to be seen.

Look at it this way. If you’re a fan of Downton Abbey, you know how many staff is required to support a titled family of six living on an estate approximately five percent as large as that pictured in “Reign”. During the time when the historical Mary was at French court, the hallways would have been perpetually busy with servants, guards, and guests of the king. The castle grounds would have been teeming with both people and industry that supported and served the needs of said noblemen.

“But, really, who needs facts if a show works? Certainly not “Reign,” – SFGATE

Don’t forget, we can’t have a hit teen show without a horror movie monster who lives in the woods and drinks human blood. Still not enough to insure all buttons have been pushed? Let’s throw in some BDSM and menage a trois that results in the death of a young woman. Finally, a recipe for a hit teen TV show.

This dress would have scandalized a bordello of the time.

As a writer, I wonder what would happen if Mary had been cast as the rather plain looking individual that she was. Beautiful women get recognition for being beautiful and it comes with a certain measure of power, although short lived like bankable athleticism.

How much more interesting it would have been to portray Mary as being the center of a whirlwind of intrigue, love, sex, conspiracy, bad doings, and assassination plots – which was all true – and cast her just as she was, not beautiful.

I was excited about this show when I first saw the trailer. I thought it might interest a new generation in the study of history. I fell in love with English history because of the movie The Lion in Winter and went on to do graduate level studies because of it. I recall one conversation in particular among several graduate level students of history in which every one of us said movies had either been responsible for lighting the spark or stoked the spark already present. I hope such inspiration will always be available, but don’t look for it in “Reign”.

And the TV14 RATING? Here’s how COMMON SENSE MEDIA rates the show. (OUCH!)

Scale of 1-5

0 POSITIVE MESSAGES

1 POSITIVE ROLE MODELS

4 VIOLENCE

4 SEX

2 LANGUAGE

1 DRINKING /DRUGS

Note that the show manages to get 4 out of 5 for SEX without taking off any clothes. That means young teens are going to be exposed to 50 Shades of concepts they’re not old enough to process.